Never done any horse logging but the first two years my Uncle sugared at the farm he used horses. There are good horses, and there are lazy ones, much like people. One day he had one that just decided to lay down in the snow and take the day off and no amount of "physical" persuasion would get that mare on her feet, so went to the arch and got a good pile of blazing logs and lit a fire under her ass. Needless to say she moved. This type of behavior would drive the animal welfare people nuts, but what do you do with a bone idle horse three miles from the house? He switched to a tractor with an excellent set of chains the next year.
On the other hand my Grandfather farmed the same place, 200 acres and raised seven kids with three or four horses until 1949, when he bought a small Massey Ferguson tractor. The thought of doing all those fields, let alone cutting wood in the winter for pulp and the furnace boggles my mind, not to mention milking 50 cows per day by hand. I do not remember him being anything but an old man but he must have been a Hercules when he was younger.
So yes horse logging if nothing else is nostagic, but I would not want to have to depend on it for anything more than a hobby income.